Magnification: Epilogue
by Maddie Simpson
Summary: After he met River as a child, he made a promise to her that conflicted with another promise he made. If he plans to keep them both, it seems the only person who can help is the only person who shouldn't.


**A/N: When I decided to pick up an old stroy, I didn't know where to take it. Wrote this and the characters told me what to do. And then pretty much forced fluff upon me. Believe me, it was worse and I toned it down. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

* * *

River's eyes didn't raise from her reading at the familiar sound of the TARDIS materializing on the far end of her cell, her slightly upturned mouth the only hint that she perceived it. He nestled it in the space she made when he began visiting regularly, not long after she was imprisoned.

She heard the door creek open, then closed. "I do appreciate you getting better at parking. We just did the pandorica, and you had to park outside after several failed attempts at the coordinates I gave you. Still not letting me drive, of course."

Not hearing a response and looking up, she saw darkened, aged eyes. "What's wrong? Where are we? Like I said you were just here but that was a while for you I think."

"Ganymede," the Doctor replied and slowly sat beside her, as she sat up and bent the leg nearest him to give him space. Her other leg remained behind him, curving around his form. Her hand mindlessly on his leg as she bent to retrieve her journal from underneath where he sat. Looking down at her hand, his eyes closed tightly as he swallowed.

"Mmm…" She flipped though her battered journal, "I don't think so. What happened?" She looked up to see his eyes closed, the emotion behind them indistinguishable. "Hey." She said tenderly, put her journal down and shook his arm. "Please tell me. You have me worried. Where even is Ganymede?"

Failing to get a response she made a move to retrieve her handheld which held a library of charts and historical records, and felt his hand on her arm, stopping her motion. She looked down at his hand resting on her and searched his face. Countless forces have, in her life, failed to prohibit her from acting on her free will. But one look at him, holding a millennium of practiced sadness, could hold her at bay. Her love was dangerous. She would destroy the universe for him, he'd later find out.

"River, it won't be in your journal. You were a child."

She made no effort to hide a puzzled expression. "And you're sure it was me? How did you know."

He emitted the first hint of a smile since arriving. "Oh, it was you all right. You were a handful."

"Sounds accurate," She chuckled. Her eyes narrowed nearly imperceptively "And what did I say my name was?"

His brow scrunched at her odd question. "River Song. It was you."

"And I said my name was River?"

"Ugh yes! What else would your name be?" He was becoming impatient, the oldest child in the universe.

She let out a sigh and looked down at her hands, unsure of where to direct the conversation. He knew nothing about the Silence, her Identity as Melody, her relationship to her parents, and that her childhood was a clusterfuck of kidnapping, brainwashing, and memory wipes it took years to wade through.

He was upset, and was before her seeking counsel because he'd likely spent every other outlet. She was brought back to her recent refusal to help with Demon's Run…she couldn't turn him away again. They'd hurt her enough with what they did to her. She was done letting what they did hurt the people around her, too, and the Doctor was obviously hurt by the things he witnessed. So, she did what she always did when she didn't know what to do. She abruptly swung her back leg over his head and stood, taking his hand. "Come with me."

* * *

Looking back at him with a knowing smile, she led him up to the console. As she passed, her free hand caressed the console and an almost imperceptible rise in energy hummed above the normal resonance of his ship. He swallowed hard again.

The depression he was feeling overwhelmed him. Everything kept slapping him in the face with the realization that he had absolutely no control over his life, the direction he was heading, his relationship with River…and the unspeakable abuse she'd suffered in becoming who was before him. Even his ship was passive aggressively telling him to fuck off about having any say in the situation.

"Did you drop off the Ponds?"

"Yeah."

"Good. When are we?" Still holding his hand, she pressed a few buttons and threw the lever, sending them into the vortex.

"Just did the pandorica."

She nodded and led him down the opposite stairs. He obediently followed, not knowing or really caring where they were headed. She ducked under the bridge platform and led him underneath the console. Sitting on the metal grate she gently tugged his hand, beckoning him to join her.

"I like it here too, when I need to think." He said as he sat next to her. River laid flat on her back, her hands neatly across her abdomen, and closed her eyes.

"I know."

His mind flashed to their conversation as he comforted young River; the same exchange with their roles reversed. He just didn't want to care anymore. Craving any kind of connection, he tentatively laid his head on her belly, knowing that if she objected she'd voice it. But she didn't of course. And feeling the energy transfer from her to his head was exactly what his defeated mind needed. That temporal energy was sensitive to her was his most recent discovery and his hand absently searched for hers, to complete the arc between them.

A few minutes passed, feeling her breath rise and fall under the weight of his head which was surprisingly, still cool. He broke their companionable silence. "River."

"Hmm?" He felt her alto timbre reverberate.

"Are you part Gallifreyan?"

"Spoilers."

He let out a frustrated hiss and looked to her face but couldn't see her expression.

Her mocking laugh he could feel coursing through his head. "We're not related if that's what you're[H1] thinking." He could even hear the smile in her voice.

He scowled. "You enjoy these games too much, River. You can be so hateful." He felt her free hand begin caressing his hair. He didn't like it. Well he liked it but didn't want to like it.

"Yes. I'm sorry. I'm frustrated by our situation too," she replied. She hadn't meant it as an excuse, and he hadn't taken it as such.

"It sounds exhausting."

"You said it, not me." They sat in silence again.

"River?"

She sighed now, almost sounding annoyed. "Yes."

"What do I do? I can't refuse. I promised you I'd help stop whoever did…" He couldn't finish, and realized it wasn't necessary.

She took a sharp breath, and slowly exhaled. "All I know is you're supposed meet me as a child, but for you it isn't for a long while. Finding that me now isn't a journey you're supposed to take. I don't know how or when we were even able to meet. I don't remember it."

He huffed. "Yeah I didn't think you would." Again silence.

"Maybe we set something in place since we're still here."

"Yes, we are." He turned onto his side and looked at their entwined fingers. She felt and smelled like home, being so close for the first time, seeing the faint golden conductivity and playing with it on her fingers like a child.

Some time passed, laying with his eyes closed, and he was sure River was asleep based on her slowed breathing. With the opposite hand he absent-mindedly traced into her forearm the circles and swirls of his language.

After a few minutes he felt her belly shake with a sleepy chuckle. "Mmm that's one of my favorites. Perseverance. It's not though, it's the one I always get wrong."

It took a moment to process what she just said. And for what it meant to sink in fully. "You get it wrong."

"Yes," she said with a comfortable, lazy yawn and a stretch. "Since our first lesson. I recognized it and thought it said 'perseverance' for some reason. But it's really 'to the ends of time to the corners of the universe I will, as always…"

"remain steadfast in your name.'" In unison they finished the rune's meaning in her spoken language. He sat up and broke into a hopeful smile.

She looked up at him and closed her eyes again, not ready to finish her meditation, and continued. "Fat chance it was that simple. It's not even one of the complicated ones, a formal military rune." She smiled to herself. "Doctor, do I have to use it in a sentence now?" Mocking him from a time in their relationship he has yet to live.

He'd spent weeks hopeless, moping around alone in the TARDIS, trying to come up with a solution to the growing snowball the universe kept repeatedly hurling at him. But for the first time in those weeks his hearts warmed. River was right. Ganymede happened to her. It was supposed to happen, and they are still here. And he found a solution that didn't break his promise to preserve her timeline. He just had to figure out how to find the person he could trust would make it happen.

With a grin that shot straight to his hearts he lay down again and aligned with River's prose body, his head propped on an arm next to her, ready to share his discovery. He was in that moment captivated by the sight of her regal profile, her eyes closed, her mouth gently turned up in a slight smile. Her impossible curls smelling faintly of gunpowder and ozone and time. She cracked an eye open and upon seeing his smiling mouth so close, broke into a wry smirk. "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Doctor?"

Nothing at all, he wordlessly replied with his mouth impulsively lowered onto hers, energy causing a tremble in his hand as it found a place cradling her neck, his thumb sweeping the edge of her jaw. Her automatic response masked any surprise she felt, as her body lifted, receiving him and willing his mouth deeper. As if called by a homing beacon he reciprocated, opening his mouth and allowing his tongue to sweep across her lower lip. She responded again as her mouth opened slightly beneath his, meeting him.

Tongue kissing River was the last thing he imagined doing when he arrived there, having spent months willing himself to hate the whole situation, and her. But how closely love and hate mirror each other, in the hearts of those who only let themselves acknowledge extremes. The leaded knots he'd felt in his gut since the last time they met in this timeline were tightened and warmed in such a simple juxtaposition.

He broke away to see River breathtakingly flushed, and interestingly, surprised. He looked down at her with what he could only guess must have been a look of wonder at where he'd been earlier, and where he was now; his thumb running along her jawline as if on a magnetic track. Unable to find words, and doubting the sanity of siding with his impulses, he chose to fish for reassurance. "I hope that kiss was better than the last one. You took me by surprise, Ms. Song."

She met his eyes with a seductive smile. "Doctor Song."

"Ms. Doctor."

She gave a raised eyebrow and sideways glance, wordlessly correcting that title too.

"No." He sternly corrected.

She coyly responded, "Spoile…"

And she was cut off by his mouth upon hers again, his fervent bite on her lip eliciting a whimper that only served to drive him further. Well that's one way to handle her, he catalogued for later, and released her mouth to begin trailing nips and kisses along her jaw and behind her ear. The sounds she made he was now sure he'd spend a normal person's lifetime wanting to elicit from her. He found it interesting now how obvious it was that his frustration with her had been sexual.

She reflexively tilted her head allowing him access to her neck and he took the opportunity to gently roll between his teeth the skin below her earlobe he'd never admit being curious about tasting.

"Doctor!" Her words finally getting through to his conscious brain.

"Mmm."

"I think I know where this is going and it's too early for you." She breathlessly panted.

He released a kiss. "Nope, seems fine." And kissed her mouth again.

Adamant, she took the sides of his face and pulled him up to make eye contact. "You told me my first time would be your last, that we lived backwards and," He broke from her grasp. "I'll be damned, mmm….if I have two lasts today."

He proceeded to explore the other side of her neck; the contact accepted with a pleasant hum he could feel in his mouth. He replied between kisses, "I probably told you that…to get you…into bed."

Had he not been engaged in present ministrations, he'd have seen her open eyes narrowed, calculating the possibility.

Such a brilliant idiot, he voicelessly observed and smiled onto her neck. The revelation of her flaws warming his hearts should have been the first symptom of the hard, fast and treacherous love he would soon slam into. He was unarguably the bigger idiot. "I just dropped you off…six hours ago…and what do you call what we're doing now?"

She gasped as realization dawned, and roughly pulled his head back up. "You dog!"

He let out a full-blown belly laugh, the first in months, knowing that's something he'd probably do. And that she probably deserved it.

"Oh I hate you!"

"No you don't." And still laughing he resumed exploring the landscape of her mouth and jawline. He'd gotten a hit and was hopelessly addicted. Secretly he wondered if it was chemistry between them or the blast of norepinephrine on his brain that had been swirling in nearly incapacitating depression. At this point he hardly cared. He felt ready to conquer a world. Right after he finished with River.

As she pulled away and he gave an audible whimper. She was looking down.

He followed her gaze and saw the thumb of an errant hand subconsciously sweeping the underside of her breast, his uncomfortably confined cock pressed into her, mindlessly seeking contact. She was right about it being too early. The overstimulation had his left and right brain on independent tangents and if he was going to cop a feel of her naughty bits, his consciousness damn well better be in attendance.

"Sorry," he looked at her sheepishly.

River sat up, chuckling but not hiding her frustration. "Oh no you're not. Being the responsible adult in the situation is harder than I thought it'd be. You know, I'm not letting you live that firsts and lasts ridiculousness down. Do you even realize how sad the thought of our lasts has made me?"

He stood and offered her his hand. "I can't wait to find out what the big deal is." He gave her a knowing smile, because it was doubtless amazing. But for now, he had important work to do.


End file.
